Re: Leave No Child Behind

: : : : LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND/ NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND - ". the Children's Defense Fund - an organization that actually cares about leaving no child behind - trademarked 'Leave No Child Behind' as its slogan back in 1994. In fact, the Children's Defense Fund had even put together legislation called 'Leave No Child Behind.' As a result, George Bush was forced to change the name of his education initiatives and his actual legislation, creatively, to 'No Child Left Behind.' When you look at the two proposed laws side by side, and realize how limited George Bush's vision is of what it takes to leave no child behind, you start to wish the guy would have ripped off a little more than the name." From "Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back" by James Carville with Jeff Nussbaum (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2003) Page 152.

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: : : As someone without a complete understanding of everything American the slogan 'Leave no Child Behind' could mean almost anything, from ensuring that every child is given a good education, to a plea for all right minded citizens to ensure that, when vacating any Catholic Church, they should be diligent and ensure that no child is left to the tender mercies of the local paedophile priest. As a one time frequent visitor to the US I give equal weight to either hypothesis. Equally given the unfathomable antics and initiatives of G. W. Bush over the last several years his initiatives and actions give only weak indicators of what's really intended.

: : According to the book mentioned above (which I left in my car and can't quote directly), the Children's Defense Fund legislative proposal was a laundry list of programs to help children. President's Bush's program is aimed at "reforming education." But critics complain that the states haven't been given the money to put the plan in action.

: : I don't know if you are familiar with Mr. Carville. He is a very colorful writer and speaker. I am having a grand time jotting down the expressions in this book including:

: : MOUTH LIKE A CATFISH - "Down in Louisiana, we call that having a mouth like a catfish - you can talk out of both sides and still whistle out the middle."
: : PUTTING A RACING STRIPE ON A TURD - "As far as I'm concerned, speeding up a tax cut is like putting a racing stripe on a turd - at the end of the day, it's still a turd."

: Carville may be from Louisiana, but he talks as colorfully as a Texan.

I'm still none the wiser but there you go, I'm clearly not from Texas. Speaking of Texas reminds me that I once met a rather well respected New England academic who opined that the IQ and commonsense of Americans was directly related to the distance separating them from New England - the further away the sparser the crop of these characteristics amongst the population. He grudgingly made an exception in the case of California but insisted that his case was made watertight if you took Texas into account.